Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...sort of?

I’m not really sure how to start this one off, so I’m just going to kind of brain-vomit here for a minute:

It seems that the more depressed I get over certain aspects of my life, the more positive I get about my body image. I don’t know how to explain it really, but I’m struggling so much with making some major life choices and am adhering more and more the mantra of “life is too short to be miserable” – and while this isn’t magically dissolving my depression since I haven’t actually made any decisions yet, it has made me realize that being overly fixated on my body image and being unhappy about how I look is ridiculous. The fact of the matter is, I like my body just fine. It’s a pretty good looking body. It’s a pretty well-functioning body, too. 6 months ago, when I went for my first physical/check-up since I was a teenager, I was a healthy person. And in the last 6 months I’ve made several BIG changes that are only adding to my health: quitting smoking, eating out less often, drinking alcohol less often, getting 7-8 hours of sleep regularly, and being more active and/or exercising on a daily basis.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t still things I want to change about the way I look – there are. But I’m learning how to let go of those aesthetic (and scale weight) changes as my main focus and putting more emphasis on how things make me feel and how they affect my physical (and mental) health. Am I going for a run because I feel like I have to in order to eat that pizza/drink that beer/have that ice cream, or am I going for a run because it makes me feel good/clears my mind/boosts my mood? Am I doing strength training to get “awesome abs”/”toned arms”/”dancers legs”, or am I doing it because it makes it easier to lift my toddler/boosts my metabolism/makes me sleep better?

More and more I’m doing my chosen type of exercise for the health benefits, not the what-my-body-looks-like benefits. And the fact is, my body composition will change as I continue to do these things and one day I may wake up and realize that doing things for my health has also improved my body aesthetic – but that is quickly becoming just an added bonus and not the main purpose of all this time and energy I put into fitness.

…as far as counting calories goes, I’ve all but given it up. I will still log my food – sometimes daily, sometimes just a couple days a week - but I don’t really stress over the calorie count anymore. I’ve raised my “limit” to TDEE, and I’m making sure my protein and carbs are where I want them to be. Probably the biggest change for me and my relationship with food is now when I eat “junk” or sweets I make sure to ask myself after the first bite if I really want it. If that first bite isn’t as delicious as I want it to be, more and more I’ll choose not to eat any more of it. I’m maintaining my weight while my body composition continues to change, and that’s okay. I’m happy here. And thank goodness! It’s hard enough dealing with all this depression, stress, and anxiety without the added pressure of hating my body all day every day. I was in that place over the winter and it was pretty terrible and crushing. I’m working really hard to maintain this body positivity while wading through the rest, and it feels so wonderful to give myself a break from the abuse and negativity.

Now for something completely different:

#100daysofchange will soon be coming to an end, and I’m kind of freaking out about it. It’s been such an amazing tool for me and an excellent way to hold myself accountable. Thank you to everyone who has been following (and participating) in this little project! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve decided I want to extend this challenge for myself. I want to make this a year-long project. I’m still coming up with a tag for it, but it may be as simple as #365daysofchange or something similar. I’ll be sure to make the announcement once I’ve made up my mind.

Regularly Scheduled Programming

I went through some serious mental shifts and changes about certain things over the weekend that have led me back around to putting together a regular training schedule and recalculating calories.

My FitBit bit the dust last week. I still haven’t been able to figure out what the deal is (and I still haven’t emailed customer service to see if they’ll replace it – for free). I spent 2 days using Argus, but the battery drain on my phone became too much of a hassle for me. So right now I am fitness tracker free!  It’s weird and is taking some getting used to. I’m finding it difficult to stay in the mindset that uncounted steps are still steps and still count toward total daily energy expenditure!

Okay, so no fitness tracker... and THEN, I pitched a fit and didn’t count calories over the weekend. Stepping on the scale Saturday morning to see “195” glaring back at me pissed me off. Logically I know that my junk-food-Friday (within calorie goals and macros, though – IIFYM my ass) had everything to do with it (high sodium = water retention), but I threw a temper tantrum over it anyway. I ate plenty of fruits and veggies (and 7-layer dip) over the weekend, and didn’t give totally over to that voice in my head telling me to eat all the candy/chips/ice cream because uncounted calories don’t count… and then last night I decided, well, maybe I should just run my numbers using a TDEE calculator online suggested by the EM2WL community and go by that for a bit. So I did. New goal: 2250, no eating back exercise calories. So don't be surprised when you see all those "1" calorie burns coming through from MyFitnessPal.

Now, of course, I’ve picked a terrible time to do all this since we leave for Disney in about 2 weeks – and those 8 days of travel will completely throw everything out of whack. While I know we’ll be doing a TON of walking down there, it’ll obviously be a rest-week from any strength training (outside of hauling Nolan around) since we’ll be super busy and probably exhausted. I'm getting a little concerned that we may end up feeling like we need a vacation from our vacation! But I'm excited nonetheless. :)

So the program that I'm following is specifically geared toward fat loss, which is really what I need most in my life right now. I got a lot of my tips from GirlsGoneStrong.com, as I love, love, love Molly Galbraith and Jen Sinkler! For next several weeks (except Disney), I'll be doing straight strength training 3 days a week, Metabolic Resistance Training (MRT) 2 days a week (I'm choosing to do these after my arm/leg workouts, but they can be done on separate days), and 2 days of Moderate Intensity Cardio (MIC - keeping heart rate between 120-150bpm for 30 minutes). The schedule I have set up right now is for Monday-Friday, or taking Thursdays and Sundays off. I'll probably bounce back and forth depending on what's going on in life.

It would seem that this schedule might interfere a bit with the purpose behind #100daysofchange, since the point of that was to do something physically active every day. Well, I've already thought of that, and I've been making so many changes in my life outside of physical activity. On my "off" days I'll take a leisurely walk, maybe talk about a healthy meal choice, or do something good for my mental health (yoga, meditation, journal, or garden, for example). I end up doing this a few times a week anyway just because sometimes life gets busy, so nothing will really be all that different - and most of those things are physically active anyhoo.

I started the program last night and got some arms and MRT in. Today was supposed to be my moderate cardio, but the weather is completely screwing me over there. It's only 46 degrees right now. What the hell?! AND rainy. I'll probably play some Just Dance on the Wii... or run circles with my toddler playing "monster". Either will do.

I just need to remind myself that consistency is important (especially with diet), and start looking at things in a long-term perspective (where will I be in a year? What about when I'm 40?) and working toward goals that will benefit me in 20 years just as well as they're benefiting me today.

The Big Quit

I keep promising a real update and then I keep getting distracted by life.

So I already talked to you guys about my #100DaysOfChange that I’m doing with some assistance from my Instagram app, and that is going really, really well. I’ve made lots of changes not only regarding exercise frequency and general fitnessy stuff, but also a lot of general health changes that I am really proud of. Here are just a few of those things:

• Gave up regular consumption of caffeine/ soda with lunch
• Cut waaaaay back on alcohol consumption/stopped drinking wine altogether to help with migraines
• Stopped birth control pills to see if this will help with my migraines
• Increased fruit/veggie intake to include at least one serving with each meal/snack
• Made an effort to get 7-8 hours of sleep every night

And most importantly:

• I quit smoking

I am 16 days in. I had one cigarette last week and it was disgusting, and took a couple drags off of one the other night (I know, I know – DUMB) which was equally disgusting. But 1.5 cigarettes in 16 days is pretty damn good. Both “breakdowns” followed quite a bit of alcohol consumption, so this is just more fuel to not drink heavily. I will also say, though, that hangovers are pretty much non-existent for me since cutting out smoking. Turns out all this time I was having a cigarette hangover and not an alcohol hangover. Bonus!

I did pick up a disposable e-cigarette the other night for those times where I’m having drinks and/or hanging out with smoker friends and get the urge to smoke. But after reading this article (go here) I’m not sure that I’ll be using that very regularly… or at all. As the mother of a 2 year old, I’m not trying to have him get into my purse, bust this thing open, and get nicotine poisoning. No way, Jose. Talk about motivation to just be done with it all. This is it, for sure.

I think I finally realized last week that I no longer define myself by drinking and smoking. Those things don’t make me unique (at all) and definitely don’t define who I am as a person/mother/wife. As I get

closer to my 30th birthday I think I’m sort of coming to grips with mortality (as cliché as that may seem), not just my own but that of the people I love. I’ve been reading a lot about the effect of fat (saturated or otherwise) in the diet, and found I should be much more worried about my smoking habit than my occasional food indulgences when it comes to heart health and avoiding heart disease. For some of you this may seem like a giant “duh” statement, but I think I always downplayed the health effects of smoking to myself. I justified a lot. I feel like I can’t justify any longer. My grandfather’s recent health problems brought a lot of this to the forefront for me, and while things are going really well for him and his healthy is improving, I can soundly say I would like to avoid living through the same experiences in my old age.

With all these health changes also comes a very base hope of: maybe this will make my weight loss easier. Birth control pills can cause weight gain and also make it hard to lose weight due to complicated hormone function, plus smoking increases cortisol production and fat storage due to all the fun chemicals in cigarettes effecting hormone function. Not to mention smoking can increase your risk for depression – which I already deal with.

But speaking of weight loss: Mike made a good point the other day when he said to me, “But you’re not trying to lose weight. This isn’t about weight loss, it’s about getting healthy overall. Weight loss is just a possible pleasant side-effect of all of this.”  That is sort of true. I’ve gone through phases. Right now I’m in more of a “sick of seeing 190-something on the scale” phase, and less of a “I love my body and just want it to be healthy and awesome” phase. While I’m still being smart about how I go about losing weight, I am frustrated to find myself at a 500-800 daily calorie deficit while eating fairly “clean” with absolutely no movement on the scale so far. That’s not even mentioning that daily exercise, and the fact that I’m doing fabulous with my protein intake and mostly avoiding heavily processed carbs. I think I may have to come to grips with the fact that I may achieve the body I want… and still weigh close to 190lbs. And I have to be okay with that. I’m still working on it. I’m seeing big changes in my body composition in the last 20 days, and I imagine that will continue. If I can get rid of the belly fat and feel awesome in my clothes and weigh 190lbs, that’s totally fine, right? Well, it should be. That’s all I’m saying.

Enough focus on (poor) body image for now…

So, yes, I’m super proud of myself for my recent accomplishments. I feel like I’m well on my way to completing my “future self” list, and that’s awesome. 

I'll be posting some progress pictures soon!

Future Self Starting Now

After years of feeling like I’m constantly failing at “being an adult”, and going through various stages of deciding maybe nobody really becomes a Grown-Up, I finally decided to sit down and write out what being an adult means to me; what the grown-up version of me is like. This all stems out of a lifestyle-change writing exercise one of the Fit Bloggers I follow posted – she asked all her followers to visualize how the “fit” versions of themselves behaved and to write all that down and then just start doing those things. To behave as if they already were the person they wanted to become. I thought it was an excellent idea at the time I saw it, and believe I actually mentioned it here. 

I tweaked the exercise a little bit for my own purposes, and this is what became of it:

The woman I want to be:

• Spends lots of time with her husband and children, but understands that friendships, extended family relationships, and time for herself are also important.
• Says "no" to social outings if she's feeling run-down, overwhelmed, or just not up for it - without guilt.
• Avoids spending too much time around toxic people and/or in toxic environments.
• Gets 7-8 hours of sleep every night in order to maintain a good mood and to avoid depressive episodes and high anxiety.
• Does some form of exercise every day and is more active throughout the day, in general.
• Puts wholesome foods in her body both to fuel her active lifestyle and fuel her mental stability, but doesn't feel guilty for indulging in the foods and drinks she loves in moderation.
• Cooks a healthy meal for her family almost daily, but knows that sometimes life happens and doesn’t feel guilty for the occasional meal of mac’n’cheese or chicken nuggets.
• Doesn’t stay up drinking/socializing until 2am if she knows it’s her turn to wake up with the kids the next morning (or at all).
• Doesn’t drink heavily and drive. Ever.
• Doesn’t smoke regularly (or at all).
• Works hard and works well even if she doesn’t always like or enjoy her job, but makes sure not to burn herself out to the point of leading to depressive episodes and Sunday night anxiety.
• Doesn’t feel guilty for taking time away from work if she’s sick or for requesting vacation time.
• Always strives to improve her quality of life and isn't afraid to make the tough decisions in order to maintain healthy balances between work/home/friends/family.
• Is smart with her money and practices good spending/saving habits.

While several of these things I scrolled out right away, others came a little more slowly and after much thought. After completing the list several days ago, I've continued to read over it almost daily to be sure these are all things that I really want and not just what I think I should be doing. I ended up removing a couple items and adding others over the first couple days, but I believe this list honestly represents the person I want to be. I've already begun taking a lot of the steps toward this version of myself. So far, so good. 

Holiday Review

So, obviously, I haven't posted since the 21st - which was last Tuesday. Of course I have eaten since then. Of course I've completely neglected my blog. But it was Christmas, what do you expect?

I did really decent with my calorie intake, with the exception of Christmas day on which I ate about 2500 calories. But, hey, that is still pretty good considering the amount of food that was available! My only saving grace Christmas Eve was that I managed to stuff my belly full of cocktail shrimp so I was too full to eat any of the more fattening/high calorie foods sitting out. lol

I did not weigh myself this morning, as I completely forgot what I was doing in the mad rush to actually get to work on time after dreaming all night long about just NOT going to work, or being incredibly late, or forgetting, etc, etc, etc... those dreams are the WORST. I'll weigh in tomorrow and maybe even take the time to do full-scale measurements - not just my waist.

Let me throw my weekend stats out there and then I'll talk a little bit about Christmas..

12/25:

• total calories: 2500 - including a few glasses of wine... delicious. :)
• 30 minutes of Just Dance 2 on the Wii - OH YEAH FUN CARDIO! I'll say maybe 150 calories burned there lol
• maybe 4 cigarettes? I can't remember... I bummed a few off my mom while I was enjoying my wine. 
• 1am bedtime - Mike and I did not do very well on bedtimes the whole weekend because my mom got us a little DVD player for our bedroom and we decided The Lord of the Rings would be the PERFECT before bed movie... lol
• I spent no money over the actual weekend - I spent $15 Thursday night when we went out with some friends. I have $20 leftover from last week. Pretty awesome. Not gonna lie.

12/26:

• total calories: 1655 - I think I was still full from dinner the night before haha
• calories burned: 200 - played Just Dance for about an hour with Mike, may have burned more than this but I'm not gonna over estimate. 
• 0 cigarettes
• 11:30 bedtime - woo!
• $0 spent

We had an excellent Christmas - Santa brought us a Wii!! Mike got me the Just Dance game (in case you didn't pick up on that already lol), we also got Mario Kart Wii and Super Mario Bros Wii... so awesome! We love that thing. James was totally ecstatic over all his gifts and we got some great family movies that we enjoyed watching yesterday. It was so amazing to have all day yesterday to just chill out and play with all the new stuff! I wish Mike and I had had enough vacation to have been able to take this week off work, too, but maybe next year. Although I'm beginning to think I'll NEVER have any vacation time saved up. Seems like every time I get a couple days something comes up and I have to use it for "non-fun" things. :-\  Oh, well. 

So overall: excellent holiday!

I think my main downfall this weekend was the amount of sweets I ate - the majority of my calorie counts Fri-Sun were cookies/pie, etc. I think it might be a bit tough to break that habit this upcoming week of wanting to stuff my face with sugar. We'll see how it goes. I'm planning to hit the gym a least 3 times this week. I'm thinking that shouldn't be too difficult since we have Friday off and I'm sure the gym will be open almost-normal hours that day. I did, however, forget to grab my gym bag to bring to work this morning - but I'm pretty sure we're going home for lunch today so I can get it then. 

Goals for this week:

- 1900 calories a day or less

- go to the gym 3 days

- take full-body measurements

- smoke as little as possible

- limit 3 alcoholic beverages per outing/get-together excepting New Years Eve (we'll be at home that night so I won't have to worry about that whole driving thing either)

Run down

Well, James has been running high fevers on and off since about 3am Monday morning and so I stayed at home with him yesterday and am home again today.. last night about 9pm I just started to feel incredibly run down. I'm afraid maybe I'm starting to fight whatever virus he's got. It seems like one of the 3 of us is always sick for Christmas. :-\  It sucks. I haven't worked out since Tuesday of last week and I'm feeling pretty down on myself for that, however I'm doing really well with my calories since I haven't been exercising. I'm going to be realistic here and just own up to the fact that I probably will not be making it to the gym this week - but next week I really need to lock back in on my routine.

Here are my stats for the last two days..

12/19:

• total calories: 1809 - unfortunately I went about 20g over my fat intake for the day though. Ate lots of cheese and other dairy.. oh well. Win some, lose some.
• no workout
• no smoking
• 11:30pm bedtime
• used some Christmas money to go out for a nice lunch with the hubby - $3 spent on starbucks from the weekly fund. 

12/20:

• total calories: 1427 - I was really blown away at how little I ate yesterday, even with making some Christmas cookies and stuff. I just wasn't really hungry at all yesterday which is another reason that makes me think I'm fighting this virus... 
• no workout
• 1 cigarette which made me feel like I wanted to throw-up. Ick.
• 10:30 bedtime
• $0 spent ($40 left for the week)

My weight for this week was 198lbs - 2lbs less than last week, so I'm not really sure how to feel about that since I was at 195.8 two weeks ago.. I'm not sure if I've actually gained or lost or WHAT! lol   My clothes continue to fit better and better everyday and I can start really seeing a difference in my face, so I'm not going to stress too much as long as I keep feeling like I'm making progress. Once the holidays are over and I can settle back into a consistent exercise routine I think I'll start seeing results at a quicker pace. I've also been thinking about re-reading Jackie Warner's book just to give myself some inspiration. We'll see how that goes.

Mike and I got all of James's presents wrapped last night plus all of our gifts to extended family - I'm going to try to get his wrapped while I'm home today. I'm so glad I'm done with all my shopping! Usually this time of year I'm going crazy trying to get everything finished up.

On another note, I started reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman a couple weeks ago and I'm almost finished with it. I definitely recommend it! Be warned - the beginning is a little slow, but once it picks up it gets really good. I'm really excited for the second book in the series next Summer! I'm almost done with this book.. and just like anytime I'm reading a book I really enjoy, as I get down to the final chapters I start stressing about leaving those characters behind. I'm going to miss them all.. I'm glad this is the beginning of a series - it will be exciting to see where things go. Now, I just have to figure out what to start reading next after I finish this - which will probably be sometime today.

So my goals for this week are:
- smoke as little as possible
- continue to limit alcohol intake to 3 beverages or less per get-together/outing
- continue 11:30pm bedtime
- 1900 calories or less a day (I have to say it felt really weird allowing myself to eat so much doing the 2100 calories - once I get back in the gym maybe we'll revisit this)

motivation breakdown...

Let's do stats first, real quick...

12/14:

• total calories: 2262 - the soda after my 2 beers put me quite a bit over. :-\  I'm thinking I need to reign back in the calories a bit... I think this idea that I can eat 2100/day makes me eat just fulfill my limit instead of eating because I'm actually hungry. We'll see how the rest of the week/weekend goes and what the scale tells me Monday morning...
• calories burned: 350 - I didn't get the workout in I wanted. I was really looking forward to kicking my own ass and the gym incident I spoke about yesterday kind of severely disappointed me. 
• not sure how many cigarettes, honestly. Probably about 8 which is over the limit I gave myself. 
• 12:30am bedtime
• $15 spent on lunch/going out ($20 left)

I packed my gym bag this morning to take to work but ended up getting out of the office a bit later than I anticipated, plus I had to run to the bank and deposit my paycheck and traffic SUCKED ASS... by the time I hit the bank and got on the road toward to the gym it was already 5pm which was not going to be enough time to do my full workout before it would be time to get James from daycare, so I told myself I would just do it when I got home. Well, apparently James did not have a good day at daycare - meaning he acted like a GIANT BRAT and actually told one little girl that he was going kill her because he was mad. Yeah. Isn't that fucking super? I thought so, too. Then he whined and acted like a big baby the whole drive home, so basically being a parent completely overrode every intention to workout I had. Right now I'm feeling my motivation wash away from me like debris in flood waters...

Our office brought in Subway for lunch today and I ate a whole 12 inch turkey sub.. on honey-oat... which added about 100 extra calories. UGH. Plus we've had a bunch of chocolate candies sitting around the office with the holiday and stuff.. and I ate 3 of those today after my sub. Basically I had like an 800 calorie lunch which kind of makes me feel like I should not eat anything for dinner, but I know that wouldn't be healthy either.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day all around - and hopefully I'll be able to get out of work on time to make it to the gym.

Two posts in one day! Mon dieu!

Just wanted to get a couple things off my chest...

As many of you followers know, I joined a gym week before last. Great, fine, whatever. I went 4 days last week, felt pretty good about getting back into the grove of things. I went today after work to get do my arms/chest and legs routine and to get 20 mins or so of cardio in. As soon as I walked into the gym I felt uncomfortable. I hopped on the elliptical and started a quick 5 minute warm-up before heading on to do my weights... and then when I went to do my weights I realized: this gym has, like, NONE of the machines I'm used to using. They didn't even have a squat machine. At all. Not a seated one, and not a standing one either. I spent a good 30 minutes just using free-weights -- which is totally fine, except that I'm not paying $35/mo just to use dumbbells, especially when my best successes were accomplished using a variety of different machinery in conjunction with free-weights. I was just irritated. This is a brand new gym that opened (although it's a chain - LA Fitness)... I just realized today that I really kind of hate it. I'm not comfortable there at all - I seriously feel like the fattest person in the place, and it seems like almost everyone that goes there knows everyone else. It just had a weird vibe for me. I dunno - maybe I'm just a crazy person. Anyway...

So I headed over to Golds after my workout and ended up talking to the GM over there about a membership. They can offer me $23/month - with no sign-up fee. Sweet! Plus, as soon as I walked into the place I just felt like I was "home" - I mean, it's the gym I had been going to for almost 4 years, so I guess that makes sense in a way. Everyone is SO nice there (all the staff), and the people that work out there are just there to workout. It's not about looking all sexified, it's not about socializing, it's just about getting your sweat on and working hard toward that rockin' body. Plus I know like 3 people that go there so maybe I can get myself a gym buddy in the process.

Anyhoo - I think I'm going to go ahead and cancel my LA Fitness membership tomorrow, and sign up with Golds again. I feel really awesome about this decision and it just makes me even more excited to continue on this weight-loss journey!

Staying on track

This morning I woke up feeling like I didn't get near enough rest - and the thought of hitting the gym after work was less-than-pleasing. I already had my gym bag packed and ready to go, thank goodness because I was running HORRIBLY late already. I threw it in the car and headed to work with my breakfast-to-go in tupperware.. out into the 18 degree morning. The high tomorrow is estimated to be 26, with a low of 12.

IT'S NOT EVEN WINTER YET, MOTHER NATURE! GET WITH IT!!

This kind of cold coupled with the 4pm sunset is really wrecking havoc on my being-happy-and-motivated-ness.

Once I got into work and woke up a little bit I was feeling better about heading to the gym - only to realize that we made plans with my parents straight after work to go to this "festival of lights" thing out in Gainesville-ish, which is almost an hour away. We realistically probably won't be back home until 7 or 8pm and then I'll need to get James straight to bed. Basically this all means that if I want to try to go to the gym I probably won't actually get there until close to 9pm.. and I just don't think I'm willing to go that late since that will give me NO wind-down time after work/family stuff before it'll just be time for ME to go to bed. So my plan is to do what I can of the core workout I did with the personal trainer last week at home before bedtime. Or maybe I'll do one of my Jackie Warner 15 minute workouts. I am definitely going to try to do SOMETHING. And then definitely hit the gym tomorrow afternoon.

I did not even have the time to hop on the scale and take measurements this morning so I will be sure to do that tomorrow and give updates on that!

Stats for yesterday, 12/12:

• total calories: 1871 - muuuuch better than Saturday's totals. Plus, with the exception of a Lean Cuisine for dinner, I had ALL whole foods yesterday. I was quite proud of myself and felt 100 times better after eating all those fruits and veggies!
• no workout - my day consisted mostly of sleeping on my couch recovering from the 3am night.
• 3 cigarettes
• 12am bedtime
• $0 spent

Goals for this week:

• workout at least 4 times this week - at home, at the gym, wherever. Just get it done.
• get to bed by 11:30pm
• 2100 calories or less a day
• no more than 6 cigarettes a day
• no more than 3 alcoholic beverages per outing/get-together

Dyyyyyyiiiiinnnnnngggg

First, let me do yesterday's stats:

12/8:

• total calories: 2000 - as you can see I went a bit over my standard calorie intake. I'm not too concerned, actually. I think some variation during the week is good. As long as I'm not going over by like 500 calories and it's not happening everyday I'm not gonna beat myself up over it. I also ate almost all whole foods all day so those calories were high in nutrients.
• no workout - I was exhausted after work and incredibly sore from my workout Tues night. 
• 2 cigarettes
• 12am bedtime - had to stay up and watch the 6th Harry Potter! SO GOOD!
• $0 spent

Now, on to events that happened today... I had my personal training assessment and workout at the gym. One of those "free" dealies to get you sucked into giving the gym all your money. And what I discovered is: I'm incredibly out of shape. Like more out of shape than I ever wanted to admit to. Cardio? Sure thing. An hour of resistance training focusing on core? Please kill me now.

I thought I had a pretty strong core. Before I had a baby I was really proud of my flat toned tummy - and my 100 crunches I did every morning. Granted since having a baby my belly has never really been the same. I'm pretty sure almost every mother on the planet has experienced this. But apparently my core is SUPER weak. I had no idea how bad it was. Holding plank position for 90 seconds made me feel like I was gonna die. Not to mention how incredibly difficult it was to do certain other types of arm/leg exercises that require your core to balance you. Eff. After this hour I hopped on the elliptical to finish off the workout - and just moving my legs, I could feel my lower belly just SCREAMING at me. Tomorrow is gonna be hell I'm sure.

Good news: My legs are incredibly strong. To that I say: DUH. Have you SEEN my thighs? Yes, they're big.. but they aren't squishy. Nowhere close.

So since I'm a new member the personal training would cost half of what it usually does - unfortunately I can't spare the extra $120/month right now. It makes me want to cry pretty hard. Now I have a pretty good idea of what I need to focus on... lower core. In laymans terms? What I like to call: Mommy rolls. Or my baby pooch.

I have a pretty good idea of where I need to start - I can remember everything we did today during the workout. I really wish I had a gym buddy. I feel like such a fool doing floor exercises by myself. But I just have to get the fuck over that mess!!!

From an emotional standpoint: I definitely began the negative inner-monologue almost as soon as the workout ended. "Wow, Jess - way to get excited about losing 20 pounds the last 5 months... doesn't do you much good if you have no strength whatsoever.", etc, etc, etc... it also didn't help that this chick told me I was "off the scale" for BMI when I KNOW that when you take my build into consideration my actual height/weight ratio is just a little bit above normal -- not obese. BMI is really pretty flawed. If you really want to know how to assess your health by your height/weight, you have to use ALL your measurements - including like how big your wrists are, or how thick your arms are at the elbow. That kind of stuff. I know why gyms don't go by that - it takes a lot longer to get all those measurements and stuff. Anyways... I digress. So I started this negative inner-monologue almost immediately and my motivation to want to KEEP going to the gym took a nose-dive, as well as my desire to want to continue to count calories... and just kind of all that general "take care of yourself" stuff. I got in my car and just felt those negative feelings spiraling out of control and literally said out loud to myself, "STOP IT. You're being totally ridiculous. Now you know your trouble spots, you can WORK on them. You CAN get stronger, you CAN fix this. You're doing great. And the better your diet gets, the more weight you lose, the EASIER it will be for your body to do those exercises."

I'm feeling much better about it now. This is just another wake-up call - much like my wake-up call back in June I talked about in yesterday's post. I'm too heavy and my body is suffering and, if I don't do something about it, my health will start to suffer soon, too - especially as I get older.

SO! As I told Mike when he asked me how my personal training went, It was good and it was bad. I hated it because it made me realize how out of shape I really am and she made me work harder than I felt I really could/should (even though I did it) - and I loved it because it made me realize how out of shape I really am and because she made me work harder than I thought I could.

A Changing Outlook

I’m going to talk a little bit more about breaking the 200lb mark this week... and by "a little bit", I mean "a whole lot":

I’ve always been someone who didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the number on the scale – I think part of that is because I’m so tall that I’ve always weighed more than I looked like I should, and always weighed more than 90% of my peers because of my height. It’s no fun listening to your 5’4 girlfriends complain about weighing a meager 120-125lbs and wearing a size 4 when the last time you weighed 125lbs you were 11… and never wore a size 4 because along with puberty came hips.

It took a long time for me to realize that being between 140 and 150lbs at 5’10 WAS super skinny. And that wearing a size 8 or 10 was pretty fantastic. Unfortunately by the time I realized that I had already started to gain a little weight. Honestly, I think being between 160 and 170 was a much healthier weight for me especially when you consider that I actually had muscle tone at that weight – whereas in high school being super thin, I was just that: super thin. Not toned. It was in my late teens that I stopped focusing on the scale and started paying more attention to how I felt in my clothing, how my clothing fit, and more on the sizes I was wearing. If I could still fit into my 10s and 12s and felt like I still looked good then I must not have gained too much weight. Even when I bumped up to a 14 I still felt pretty confident in the way I looked.

I’m sure I’ve said this before – but when I got pregnant I was the heaviest I’d ever been at 170lbs. I gained exactly what I should have during my pregnancy and 2 days before my son was born I weighed 205lbs. I lost almost all of that weight in the month after James was born – and then I became stressed and depressed due to certain circumstances most of you followers already know about… and I packed 25 of those 35lbs back on. I was a size 16 for the first time in my life, but I had just had a baby so I wasn’t really stressed over it. I never had trouble losing/maintaining weight in my life, why should now be any different? I finally got back into the gym in the summer of ’06, lost enough to fit back into my 14s, then fluctuated in the lower-to-upper 180s for a while. I got engaged in the beginning of ’08 and really started hitting the gym pretty hard and by that August, just in time for my wedding, I was down to my pre-baby weight of 170! Go me!!

When you get married and you have to get all that paperwork taken care of and all the administrative crap… someone should give you this disclaimer: Getting married can cause inexplicable weight gain...IN LARGE AMOUNTS. It’s just how life works. You’re not trying to impress anyone anymore, you’re happy, you’re probably going out to eat more, you’re not focused on hitting the gym everyday because you’re a NEWLYWED and you want to spend time with your NEW HUSBAND/WIFE. It’s VERY EXCITING! Add to this the fact that you continue to get older every year… shocking, I know… and it becomes harder and harder to lose all that “happy weight”.

Let’s fast forward to January 2010: I’ve just continually gained weight since I got married… I can no longer fit into a single pair of my size 14’s, and now my 16s have gotten too small. Instead of going to Target and purchasing a SCALE so that I can actually SEE how much weight I’ve gained in a little over a year, I decide to purchase new clothing… yes. That’s right. 18. I had to graduate to 18. I like to blame this on my 6 months stint on Prozac for lovely anxiety… but the reality is I got lazy, I ate crap, and if I had been taking care of myself I wouldn’t have gained nearly the amount of weight that I did over that 6 month period. When I went to the doctor that month I was at 206lbs. One pound heavier than I had been at 9 MONTHS PREGNANT!

(Quick FYI to the guys out there:  going from a size 14 to a size 18 in girl sizes is like going from a size 30 to a size 36 in dude sizes. It’s pretty substaintial.)

Okay, so you would think this GIANT LEAP to weighing more than I had when I was pregnant would have been some kind of huge wake-up call, right? WRONG. Instead I just got fucking depressed… and then by June I weighed a lovely 215lbs.

That was the wake-up call for me. That, and looking at pictures of my fat-self… lol…plus the realization that my size 18 pants were starting to feel tight. UNACCEPTABLE.

Being under 200lbs again feels amazing. It’s hard for me to articulate. I feel emotionally lighter. I feel like it IS actually possible for me to reach my “dream” weight. This is a HUGE thing for me. It’s hard to describe.

 In Spring of ’09 my gym offered me 2 free personal training sessions – I was at about 180-185 at the time… and the trainer asked me what my goal weight was and I went off on this whole thing about how I didn’t care if I weighed 180 for the rest of my life, I just wanted to be healthy, toned, strong… and he again asked me, “Okay, but what is your GOAL weight?” and I said 150, and then immediately added, “But I know I’ll never be that again. I’ve had a baby, I’m older now. I’d be happy with 170.” I wasn’t giving myself any credit. At the time 170 was a small loss for me. It was shortly thereafter that I stopped going to the gym regularly and began the process of gaining and gaining quickly.

Today I feel like 150 is an attainable goal. It might take another year, maybe a little more – but the point is that I KNOW I can get there. It’s all about small steps. A couple months ago I wanted to be at 200, I made it, I surpassed it! Now I’m focusing on 180.

The biggest thing is that now I enjoy taking care of myself, I enjoy eating right and learning about nutrition and how different foods help my body. I enjoy exercising and feeling the difference in my energy level and my emotional health. This has been an incredible experience for me! I’m really proud of myself!

<end rant>

Stats for 12/7:

• total calories: 1974 - yesterday was my MIL's birthday and we went to Olive Garden, and I would have done juuuuust fine if I hadn't had that margarita later in the evening... it's okay though. I hit the gym pretty hard before heading to dinner and my net calories for the day were only 1610. Not going to beat myself up over this one.
• calories burned: 364 - weight lifting for the win!
• 2 cigarettes - smoking has been really weird for me this last week. It's like I really WANT to smoke (especially when I'm drinking or with my smoker friends), but then when I do I feel really yucky and the next morning - no matter if I smoke 1 cigarette or 10 - I feel awful and my chest feels heavy and I'm all coughy and gross. Quitting has turned out to be much harder than I thought it would be for me. 
• 12am bedtime  - stayed up too late reading.
• $15 on drinks ($21 left for week - dinner was free thanks to my FIL!)

I haven't decided if I want to go to the gym tonight or not - I'm feeling like I might be coming down with a cold or something, and I have a personal training assessment tomorrow evening that I really really want to go to and don't want to reschedule. Maybe I'll do some yoga or something at home. 

Water weight - not a myth!

Part of me has always felt like water weight (water retention) was kind of a cop-out for putting on a small amount of weight of a short period of time… but I learned this week that water weight does really exist and I experienced it for probably one of the first times in my life that I was consciously aware of.

I posted on Monday stating that I gained 3lbs while on vacation – I knew this to be true, my scale told me so and the way my pants fit confirmed the scale’s bad news. I also couldn’t comfortably have my belt on the 5th notch like I had been able to do for a couple weeks now.

Well, all day Monday I rehydrated… on any given day I drink between 64 and 100oz of water, however, while in NLR I think I’m lucky if I drank 32oz of water every day. I definitely noticed a difference in my energy level on a few days, and the amount of chapstick applications required lol. Tuesday morning I woke up, put on the very same work slacks I had worn the day before (c’mon, people, they’re work pants. You can wear them more than once.) with the same belt… and in a 24 hour period my pants went from fitted to loose, and I went back down to my 5th belt notch. Hydration for the win!

Water is pretty awesome. Not gonna lie.

Other good news: I FINALLY got my gym membership!!! I'm really excited about it! And my mom actually said that she was thinking about joining too so we can go together - which will be an EXCELLENT motivator for me. :)

Okay, so I know I didn’t post yesterday – work got a little insane and the evening was even busier for me. So here are two days worth of stats:

11/29:

• total calories: 2040 - 163 over my goal. I had a donut in the morning... and then after dinner I ate some triscuits and cheese and that's what killed me. That donut wasn't even that good. -.-   I was really hungry in the evening and I haven't had a chance to hit the grocery store since we got back so the only snack food was, well, snack food... instead of having lettuce and stuff to make a salad or fruit to eat. 
• no workout - exhausted from the drive still. 
• 3 cigarettes
• 11pm bedtime
• $4 spent on lunch ($36 for the week/$100 for the month)

11/30:

• total calories: 1872 - shy of my limit by just 5 calories. Beer intake is KILLING me. I really need to stick to white wine. Or start drinking that "diet" beer.. Mich Ultra, Bud Select 55.. bud they're gross. True fact. 
• no workout - shit got busy and the weather was awful. :-\
• 9 cigarettes.. ugggh. As I smoked my last cigarette of the night I realized.. I'm over it. And I'm so much MORE over it today now that I feel like a truck ran over my chest. Good riddance!
• 12am bedtime
• $6 spent on lunch ($30 for the week) - thanks to the utter lack of anything edible in our house since I've had not ANY time to go grocery shopping, we've had to eat out for lunch twice now. However, yesterday we went to subway where I had a turkey on wheat stuffed with veggies - it was SUPER good!

The plan for today is to hit the gym. I enrolled online, though, and haven't yet received my confirmation email so I'm not sure how that works exactly... I printed my contract with my electronic signature though, so I'm pretty sure I can just take that with me up there and get my keycard and stuff. However, if I don't make it I'm not going to kick myself - this week is mostly about getting back to good eating and getting plenty of rest to recover from the horrific drive home.

*sounds of a cheering crowd*

So, even though I didn’t make my walk yesterday since a) my mom wasn’t feeling well, b) the wind was blowing about a million miles an hour down from Canada making it REALLY UNCOMFORTABLE OUTSIDE (screw Canada and the cold wind they send this way), and c) had to finish laundry/cleaning/shopping/start packing for our trip (tomorrow!!!!)… I did an amazing job on my eating. An AMAZING job.

I read this article yesterday at Huffington Post about how drastic changes in your diet can actually reverse heart disease. The type of eating that this doctor was encouraging was, basically, clean eating – what he called “nutritarian” eating – where 90% of your calories come from nutrient rich plant-foods: vegetables, beans, fruits, nuts and seeds. He actually makes HUGE points of getting out of the “low-fat” frame of mind and focusing on “good fats” - things like nuts, seeds, avocados, olive oils, etc., and for your main starchy carbohydrate to be beans.  It was really interesting. If you want to take a look, you can read it here.

Yesterday I ate oatmeal, almonds, salads (for lunch and dinner), triscuits with low-fat cheese, grapefruit, apple, shrimp sautéed in olive oil spread and minced garlic with some low-fat fettucini alfredo (some of that dry mix you can buy and then heat with water and milk).. the alfredo was probably the worst thing I ate the whole day and it was only about 300 calories for the serving.

Stats for 11/17:

• total calories: 1500
• no workout - although I probably got some exercise running up and down the stairs all night doing laundry and speed walking around Target to get the last of the things for our trip. 
• no cigarettes
• 11:30pm bedtime
• $0 spent

here comes my 19th nervous breakdown...

I must must MUST get better about updating my blog on a DAILY basis instead of this every other day routine I seem to be falling into.

So I bumped my caloric intake down for this week. I use MyPlate to track my calories and they have a little calculator that tells you how many calories you should eat to lose or gain however many pounds per week. So I would, ideally, like to be losing about 1.5 pounds a week – so this little calculator dealie told me I should be consuming 1877 calories/day or less. Okay, fair. I can totally do that.

Then… I go out for beers last night and blow my calorie count by 48 calories. 48 maybe not SEEM like a lot… but you consider that I consumed 550 calories worth of BEER last night… that makes it seem pretty awful. I even told myself I was just going to have 2 glasses of white wine (about 200 calories, give or take) and then drink water… but I just didn’t want to pay the $6 a glass or whatever it was… yeah, so I spent $20 on beers instead.. plus tip.. because I drank FIVE of them. FML. Seriously.

Other things to derail my healthy eating this week… had to take the kiddo to the doctor yesterday morning – find out he has a sinus infection, which sucks pretty hard for the little dude – but the appointment was at 11:30am.. which means he missed lunched at daycare.. so what do we have for lunch? Ah, yes, the World-Wide Little Kid Favorite Food: MCDONALDS! Now, I got myself a kid’s meal with a tea instead of soda so I kept it under 550 calories there. But it’s still fucking McDonald’s. And it pretty much killed my sodium intake for the day. I did have some baked salmon and wild rice for dinner though… so I feel like I made it up to myself a little bit there. Although I cooked at my mom’s and she didn’t have any vegetables for some reason, so I didn’t even come close to my “strive for 5” yesterday. I’m so envious of Emily and her brilliant job at clean eating!

Part of me kind of feels like, “Oh, stop beating yourself up because you’re about to leave for vacation and you’re pretty much going to give in to all your vices and eat like shit while you’re there. May as well just start over when you get home.” But I don’t really WANT to eat like shit and I certainly don’t want to feel like I have to “start over” on anything. I want to just move FORWARD. Consistently. I’m sure I will probably bust my calories several times – I mean, let’s be real. It’s THANKSGIVING. But I generally want to try to make good choices.. even if I’m just eating massive quantities of those good choices.  Plus another part of me feels like it won’t be so bad because I will actually have the time and opportunity to exercise EVERY DAY. And that will be so brilliant!

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. …now watch me lose like 10 pounds while I’m there. Hahaha!

Okay so stats for the last couple days…

11/15:

• total calories: 1798 - I was starving almost ALL DAY on Monday. I don't know what the deal was. So I ate a lot more than I usually do, although I tried to make sure I was stuffing myself with healthy choices like apples, wheat thins, pistachios, etc.
• calories burned: 500 - so I actually clocked the walk/runs my mom and I have been doing.. and turns out it's more like 2.5 miles than 3, so I've probably been a little off on the amount of calories I've been burning. Today we jogged almost the whole thing. It felt amazing! 
• no cigarettes - day 2
• 10:30pm bedtime - WOO! GO ME!
• $4 on lunch ($36 left for the week)

11/16:

• total calories: 1925 - we discussed this above. Beer is evil. The End.
• no workout - it rained like a mofo yesterday.. I planned to do a workout dvd at home, but then hung at my mom's til like 7pm or so and had to meet up with folks at 8pm, so I didn't really have the time. Poop.
• ...3 cigarettes. Begin again. *facepalm*
• 1am bedtime - I actually got home around 11:30pm, but I stayed up late reading. AND NOW I HAVE NO MORE WALKING DEAD COMICS!! NOOOOOOOOooooooooo!
• $23.. on beer... -.- ($13 left for the week. EFF!!!)

Oh, also.. I forgot to mention this last week - but I bought some new jeans and a bunch of long-sleeve T's and sweaters because I realized I have, like, NO WINTER CLOTHES. Word? So get this.. I got a HELLUVA deal because a friend sent me an invite to the Gap Give+Get sale, and I had a TON of cashback from Discover.. so I was able to trade in $80 of my Discover Cashback for a $100 Gap gift card (!!!) so I got almost $300 worth of Gap clothing for... wait for it... $98!!! Brilliant, eh? Plus free shipping. Damn straight. I'm so amazing. Heh. 

Anyways, so that leaves me with only $2 left in my monthly fund, but I'm pretty sure I'll do just fine with that. 

I'm getting so excited for my trip to NLR!! Only two days!!! Or "two sleeps" as I tell James. :)